I need to *gasp* format a 3.5" floppy as double-density!

synthead · 2009-08-19 14:38:24

And how do I do it?! I got an old Amiga 2000HD computer I wanna mess with

dunc · 2009-08-19 18:50:25

I envy you. I never had a "big box" machine; 500s and 1200s all the way for me...

Try

mkdosfs /dev/fd0d720

but I'm not sure. It's ages since I had to do it.

And beware that an HD floppy formatted as DD might not work, especially in a DD drive like the Amiga's. The strength of magnetic field required to read and write HD media is higher. Back in my Amiga days I found it a bit hit and miss; sometimes an HD disk would work for weeks then stop suddenly, others just wouldn't work at all.

And I assume you know that it has to be mounted as PC0: under AmigaOS. Unless you're trying to install Linux m/68k or something.

rowdog · 2009-08-19 18:50:52

I can't even remember the last computer I had with a floppy drive but I believe fdformat is the command you're looking for. You can look up the right device for the proper density with "man fd".

enrique · 2009-08-19 19:19:46

Are you sure that the 2000 has a HD drive? I thought that only the 4000 had that.

When I switched from my A4000 to my first Linux pc I "just" moved the harddrive from the 4000 over in my pc and mounted it, Linux supports ffs

synthead · 2009-08-20 05:40:53

dunc wrote:

I envy you. I never had a "big box" machine; 500s and 1200s all the way for me...
Try
mkdosfs /dev/fd0d720
but I'm not sure. It's ages since I had to do it.
And beware that an HD floppy formatted as DD might not work, especially in a DD drive like the Amiga's. The strength of magnetic field required to read and write HD media is higher. Back in my Amiga days I found it a bit hit and miss; sometimes an HD disk would work for weeks then stop suddenly, others just wouldn't work at all.
And I assume you know that it has to be mounted as PC0: under AmigaOS. Unless you're trying to install Linux m/68k or something.

Thank you I will definately try that when I'm at the only PC I retrofitted with a floppy, haha. And thanks for the heads up about the DD/HD differences. There really isn't a place you can buy new DD disks without going through an arm and a leg I would imagine, right? My only reason for using floppies is copying some software, so if it fails, no big deal. I won't store important data on it though.

I'm not sure about the PC0: devices yet. My 2000HD system consists of a tower, an external floppy drive by AE, and a two-button serial mouse. I don't have an Amiga keyboard or a monitor, and since they're both specialized devices, I'm using a TV with the Amiga's B&W composite output and ... no keyboard. Makes shell scripting difficult to say the least I am going to solder together board based on a PIC that will translate the keycodes from AT to Amiga, but that's in the works. I also soldered together a VGA interface using some logic ICs, but the analog output on the DB-23 video port is extremely low-frequency, so I need to find an ancient monitor that'll work or I'm SOL/starting a money pit.

rowdog wrote:

I can't even remember the last computer I had with a floppy drive but I believe fdformat is the command you're looking for. You can look up the right device for the proper density with "man fd".

man fd That's a great resource, thank you! I also read about setfdprm as recommended by fdformat, but it seems to be depricated in our newer util-linux-ng package. If I can get by without it, I'm happy. I'll look into that when I'm in front of my box, thanks!

enrique wrote:

Are you sure that the 2000 has a HD drive? I thought that only the 4000 had that.
When I switched from my A4000 to my first Linux pc I "just" moved the harddrive from the 4000 over in my pc and mounted it, Linux supports ffs

That is amazing! Aren't the older Amiga disks SCSI (and did you have a SCSI port)? I haven't disected my Amiga too far yet! That's really good to know though, I just might do that instead of copying via wonky floppies. Especially if I can dd my disk first, it's an oldie And yes, it is a 2000HD as it reads right on the label! That's what I thought too when I saw it, it was just too cool not to have. And I bought it at the local thrift store for $10!

synthead · 2009-08-20 05:45:24

Here it is Smells like nicotine and is very yellowed, but it works!

Last edited by synthead (2009-08-20 05:48:14)

R00KIE · 2009-08-20 18:01:13

I also soldered together a VGA interface using some logic ICs, but the analog output on the DB-23 video port is extremely low-frequency, so I need to find an ancient monitor that'll work or I'm SOL/starting a money pit.

I don't know if it is possible but maybe you can conjure up something to connect it to a "faster" monitor like ... slow video out -> buffer/converter -> good fast video -> regular old and dusty faster monitor ... maybe its a too big project if you don't have all the needed hardware to debug the circuit (like oscilloscope, function generator and so on).

sand_man · 2009-08-20 22:58:20

synthead wrote:

Here it is Smells like nicotine and is very yellowed, but it works!
http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/571/imag0137dhg.th.jpg

Ewww! hahaha
There's a girl in my office, I had to use her computer one day and the keyboard was all kind of sticky from nicotine...:P

dunc · 2009-08-21 11:36:46

synthead wrote:

There really isn't a place you can buy new DD disks without going through an arm and a leg I would imagine, right?

Depends whether you call $6.12+postage from the UK an arm and a leg. They're Amiga formatted, so you'd still have to reformat them to FAT to transfer stuff from a PC. Amigakit's worth a browse anyway; you might save yourself some work if you can spare the cash - I know they have PS/2 keyboard and mouse adaptors, for example.

This might be a useful resource if you continue down the soldering-iron route.

the analog output on the DB-23 video port is extremely low-frequency

15KHz, I think you'll find: the NTSC/PAL TV rate. I suspect VGA's a no-go, unless you have a model C "A2000+" with the Enhanced Chipset. The original Amiga chipset was built for NTSC (or PAL) and nothing else: it's locked to that 15KHz. Theoretically, what R00KIE's talking about is possible (there was a box available commercially for a while that did exactly that) but I'm no hardware guy, and just the thought of trying that sort of thing myself gives me the shakes, so I can't help there.

You can tell if it's an ECS machine by the OS version: if it's 2.04 you're in luck: the scan/refresh/pixel clock rates are alterable in software, just like they are in X, and 800x600 interlaced @ 60Hz is officially do-able (although it slows everything down something horrific). No point in going into the details of how yet, until you're sure of what you have. Otherwise, the best you can hope for is component "NTSC", hooked up to a TV (or video-rate monitor, if you can find one). It's not all bad news though, since most "classic" Amiga software was hard-coded to the 15Khz refresh rate, and simply won't work in VGA modes anyway.

And yes, the 2000 is SCSI. There was a great wailing and gnashing of teeth when the A1200 and A4000 turned up with IDE. Old-school Amigans were worse than Apple fans for hardware snobbery. (And we ex-Amiga Linux users see nothing odd in the OS pretending that IDE devices are really SCSI. For legacy reasons, the IDE driver in Amiga-related OSes is still called scsi.device.)

[Edit: Spelling. I actually wrote that last night during a bout of insomnia and, reading it over, it shows. ]

Last edited by dunc (2009-08-21 11:38:49)

Arch Linux

#1 2009-08-19 14:38:24